What was Francis Ford Coppola’s first movie?
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In 1971, a young filmmaker with only four director credits to his name successfully fought one of the biggest studios in Hollywood for the right to make his version of a small mafia movie that he himself initially described as “pretty cheap stuff”. The Godfather would go on to be lauded as one of the greatest films ever made, and Francis Ford Coppola would become an iconic auteur of New Hollywood.
Coppola was chosen for the position specifically because he was cheap. He had little credit to his name after just one of his previous four movies, the 1968 musical Finian’s Rainbow, had turned out to be a box office success. He was desperate for money, having poured his own savings into the production of THX 1138, an Orwellian sci-fi film that challenged cinematic norms and was helmed by first-time director George Lucas.
His previous directorial effort, The Rain People, was also a costly flop for his production company despite winning the top prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where it premiered. It also brought together future Godfather actors James Caan and Robert Duvall on screen for the first time.
Coppola’s second movie as director was the first time he was entrusted with a big Hollywood budget. You’re a Big Boy Now was just his MFA thesis project, yet it debuted at Cannes in 1966 as the sole American entry. The movie received little fanfare, although it pointed the way forward for socially observant dark comedies about young people trying to shrug off the post-war generation. It led the filmmaker Mike Nichols, who was about to direct The Graduate at that time, to leave the cinema and declare “I’m a fraud”.
But what came before that?
You’re a Big Boy Now was Coppola’s initial attempt at making a film for himself. Prior to working on that project, he’d written two scripts for other directors with mixed results. The political epic Is Paris Burning? was a notable success, while Sydney Pollack’s This Property Is Condemned was a box office bomb.
But he’s got his first gig in the movie business working for the Godfather of New Hollywood, Roger Corman. The young Coppola started off as Corman’s assistant, doing anything he could to be useful for the so-called King of Cult. He even washed his car. Until one day, Corman gave him the job of sound editor on his 1963 film The Young Racers.
Then came his big moment, when Corman took him to Ireland to shoot his movie The Raven. “Roger always made two movies,” Coppola told Slash Film last year. After the B-movie movie specialist had made the film he was commissioned for, “he’d then made a second film for himself, because it was very cheap.” So Coppola seized his chance. “Everyone working for him knew that there’d be another picture if someone could dream it up,” he explained. “And so, I wrote a page that I showed Roger and ultimately, I won the sweepstakes.”
The synopsis Coppola had written was for a gothic horror flick about a struggle over family inheritance called Dementia 13. He completed the script in just three days with his film school friend Al Locatelli, and it was made using the set of The Raven with a budget of just over $40,000.
Coppola recently released a director’s cut of the movie through Lionsgate, which is strictly a collectors’ item. What it does show is that he certainly needed time to hone his craft. Yet just eight years after Dementia 13, Coppola completed principal photography on The Godfather. Corman’s car washer had graduated with flying colours.
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